


An Morning Muse

by anoccasionalcigarette



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Boys In Love, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Lazy Mornings, M/M, Revelations, Sappy, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-07-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:14:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25421491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoccasionalcigarette/pseuds/anoccasionalcigarette
Summary: Aaron's favorite place, another offering of himself and Spencer can't possibly be any more in love than he is right now.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid
Comments: 7
Kudos: 149





	An Morning Muse

It was rare that Spencer was up before Aaron. So rare that he couldn't remember the last time it had happened, which was saying something given his capacity for remembering things.

They were at Spencer's apartment and it was early, too early for him at least. Spencer lay facing his lover who mirrored him, sprawled out, one arm under his head the other out in front of him, his fingers skimming Spencer's stomach disconnected in sleep. Spencer inched a bit closer, careful not to wake him just yet and without prompting Aaron's hand wrapped itself back around him like it had missed being there. 

It had taken a while for Spencer to get used to sharing, both his apartment and his life. Aaron was patient and Spencer’s anxiety and inexperience eventually melted away and they fell into rhythm. Most people romanticize the start of a relationship, the honeymoon phase, the butterflies and excitement of firsts and figuring it out, but Spencer found this part, the familiarity and the comfort of knowing what things meant, to be even better.

Spencer yawned and allowed himself to stretch, careful not to move his legs too much as they were intertwined with Aaron’s. He didn’t want to wake him, a potentially risky endeavor, as Aaron was the most attentive and observant person Spencer had ever met. Even now in sleep Spencer wouldn’t be surprised if he opened his eyes, wide awake, ready, aware, brow furrowed. Spencer had firsthand seen his partner, dead asleep, be roused by just a whisper from his son, whereas Spencer usually needed several very loud alarms to finally be tricked into waking. The older man drew a breath but stilled, a small snore escaping his lips. 

Spencer reached out and slowly traced along Aaron’s eyebrow, so lightly, just ghosting the dark hair and following along the superciliary arch. Spencer chased the scientific nomenclature away in favor of being in the moment as best he could. Again on the other side, this time stopping to capture a stray hair or two before following around to the skin just above his cheek, pressing lightly underneath his eye as if to kiss it. Painting a picture, capturing the feel of an image he has memorized and will keep for the rest of his life. The soft serenity rarely seen in his lover’s face starts to fade as Spencer runs his finger down the bridge of his nose and consciousness arrives.

“What are you doing?”

His voice isn't awake enough yet to have any weight but his eyebrow lifts to supply the inflection missing. Spencer feels it and smiles even though Aaron hasn’t opened his eyes yet.

“I’m drawing you.”

Aaron’s turn to smile, so impassioned it’s as if it woke up his whole body. His eyes open, and he draws in a big breath of air with a hint of a chuckle. There was something amusing but Spencer couldn’t place it. He hadn’t been joking.

For all Spencer’s hang ups and reservations, Aaron was just as content to take things slow - at least when it came to their feelings. They had both been pretty eager to explore the physical aspect of it, an act they can compartmentalize until they can't. Nights they can pretend are just about sex until it becomes tethered to intimacy, to feeling, and suddenly it's real. Aaron's experience led the way through the initial courtship, the rules, dating, the physical aspects - but this kind of intimacy seemed new to him, like it only existed here between the two of them, new and scary. Spencer felt just as special every time Aaron shared something new, because he knew what it meant, how rare it was, that no one else knew this. Each new discovery was earned, a moment, a revelation, just a tiny clue offered. It felt natural to Spencer, like studying a subject, taking notes and tracking patterns. Every now and then the other would offer a piece to the puzzle - an anecdote, a scar explained, a nervous habit exposed - delicately given like they both wanted to take their time solving it. Especially here, together, home, human traits exposed themselves not needing to be locked away or hidden, unable to be weaponized or held against them in the harsh disposition their job demanded. Together they had a place to land.

A few weeks earlier Spencer had given Aaron a key, some room in the closet, and the drawer in the nightstand. It was big move, for which he was rewarded both in affection and the admission that Aaron liked staying at Spencer’s place more than at his. It was harder logistically with Jack, so it was a rare occasion but Spencer cleared the drawer anyway while Aaron lay on the bed looking softly up at him with a new facial expression for Spencer to memorize, confessing that he didn’t feel at home in his apartment. Too much had happened there. He’d rather be here, surrounded by walls that held a home, a place well loved and thought about, a shrine to everything Spencer Reid. A place that smelled like books, like coffee, like Spencer. Eventually they’d build their own place together, but not just yet.

Spencer was frozen in thought, his finger resting on Aaron’s chin when he felt Aaron grab it and press a kiss on the inside of his wrist. Spencer withdrew his finger, his brush, thankful for a subject that would tether him to the moment without chastising him for chasing a thought too far.

“I’m gonna go for a quick run.” Awake, just like that, a feat Spencer was unlikely to learn, about as likely as him joining Aaron on a run. The invitations had stopped pretty early into their relationship but Aaron didn't seem disappointed, especially if he timed it right and Spencer was finally up and in the shower when he got back. He sat up and watched Spencer stretch into the warm part of the bed his lover abandoned. Aaron ran his hand up the comforter feeling a leg though the sheets, squeezed just above his knee. Reluctant to leave, reluctant to abandon the two of them that exist like this, the most open of them, the truest of them. Here in the light of the morning, filtered through soft yellow curtains, a man openly in love, a man the BAU would see as a stranger, a man who maybe didn't even exist before Spencer Reid, smiles down at him, glowing yellow, radiant.

The spell breaks as he gets up and starts the day. Spencer is not as keen, still basking. He closed his eyes and listened to Aaron pad around the room, sounds that used to make Spencer uneasy, sounds of intrusion, an unfamiliar role in his carefully constructed habitat, now familiar, now welcomed, now home. It was perfect, this simple moment. If it weren't for the extra suits in the closet, the extra toothbrush by the sink, the physical, tangible proof that he existed here this could all be a dream. Spencer stretched again, the waking world closer to claiming him. He straightened his leg pulling the covers down revealing more of his shirtless torso, twisted as he dropped his head into Aaron's pillow, a curl or two escaping in front of his face. Five more minutes he mused and remained there, posed and feeling like the subject of a renaissance painting, one where unashamed naked subjects lie open and vulnerable, figures of heady indulgence draped across beds fully gratified. 

The best of them live here together in the mornings, safe, hidden, complete. Footsteps tell Spencer that Aaron is back, he hears him pull open the nightstand drawer but he doesn't take anything. He leaves the room, and Spencer knows he'll start the coffee. 

This is a good thing as it's the last kick that Spencer needs to get up. Pulling himself from the sheets he eyed the drawer, pulled fully open. An offering, a gift. Spencer looked through it, having not succumbed to curiosity before this. It had been hard for him at first, to resist looking at something that was both his but was someone else's too. To in some way be in control of someone else's privacy, however small seemed a responsibility he'd never known. But the long game was more fun, the trust that settled in place of his uncertainty was heavy and weighed him down on nights he didn't get to spend with Aaron. A new feeling, being scared to discover something, like accidentally reading the last page of a book and spoiling the chance to hear the story as it unfolds, a book Spencer really wanted to savor.

Inside was a few creature comforts, a charger, some pills, pens and pencils - things you'd find in anyone's bedside drawer. But the object being offered, Spencer knew, was the black journal that lay neatly in the center. He pulled it out. It was almost too easy - a journal? Aaron's thoughts up for grabs, the secrets they'd been sharing documented. Perhaps letters, a conversation of sorts that was now ready to be had?

Spencer wouldn't have guessed that there would be no words at all. He opened the leather cover to reveal a sketch book, unlined white pages with pencil etching of figures and lines and shading, all of one subject in particular.

They weren't professional but were still remarkable, an untrained hand learning curves and proportions through practice and repetition. Spencer smiled at sketches of himself laying in bed, the first page he flipped to not unlike the pose he struck this morning. He didn't even know Aaron could draw. He knew in the past Aaron had explored other interests, dipping into the arts in high school and college just to explore some softer sides before committing to a life of law, of duty, of structure. All of this exploration kept quiet, hidden, like everything else he had hidden growing up. When they had gone out fo their one month anniversary (two weeks after it had passed, thanks to a case) Spencer knocked over a clay vase at the restaurant after a few glasses of wine. After profusely apologizing, Aaron had walked an embarrassed Spencer out, trying not to laugh and later whispering into Spencer's hair that he'd taken a pottery class in college, but dropped out after the first class. It was like he was testing himself, confirming there was only one path for him by ruling out something completely antithetic. Spencer had mumbled that a potter would be more helpful than an FBI agent right now and was delighted by the laugh it extracted from the older man.

He continued to flip through the book, holding it in front of him as he walked into the kitchen to grab his coffee, a move not uncommon for the genius. A few pages were dedicated to practicing shapes and features and he found just his nose or just his eyes drawn over and over again, eventually interrupted by scribbles of curls or pressed into a pillow. Some faces had his mouth open, some had less flattering facial expressions and Spencer just hopped he didn't find any with drool drawn dripping out his mouth. Some figures had no face at all or only the back of his head was visible or sometimes it was just a lumpy comforter with a hand or a foot sticking out. As he flipped further back he tracked the timeline of each morning. Aaron had kept this sketchbook a while, almost a year. Spencer recognized particular dates, like when he had cut his hair short, a morning at Aaron's house when Jack had snuck in for the first time, the night after JJ's wedding when he passed out in his suit. Some pictures had more subtle markers of time, particular mornings when he'd wake up with scratches or lovingly earned bruises, or morning after harder cases that left cuts and wounds to be tended to. Spencer rubbed at one that featured his knee, regretting it when his finger smeared the graphite, making the scar look even worse.

He flipped to another page and found words for the first time. He almost missed Aaron's distinctive handwriting delicately scrawled in the margins. It accompanied a picture of a ball of covers, lines and folds where Spencer gripped it tight from underneath. Aaron's ability to capture the stress it elicit was both impressive and disheartening.

_"It took me forever to get you to wake up. When you did you just said you were hungry, but you were asleep again by the time I was finished making you breakfast. I ate it while I watched you and I thought about all the nightmares I wasn't there for in the past and vowed to be there for them in the future. You woke up again, more peaceful this time but mad that I ate your breakfast."_

Spencer laughed but remembered that morning. He didn't recall which nightmare it was, but he remembered letting Aaron driving him to a meeting that night. 

The sketches filled the entire book, every page dedicated to him. Images of himself stuck in time, encapsulated in his favorite moments through the eyes of someone who took the time to see him. Spencer closes it. There was no more writing but there didn't need to be. He sits with it, moved enough that his neglected coffee starts to get cold. 

\----

Spencer's body was draped over a seat on the jet after a long case. He sat at the table with Morgan, JJ, and Emily, the three of them in the middle of a game of cards he declined to join. Practically twisted in his chair and looking hardly comfortable, he sat with his head rest on his hand, elbow propping himself up on the outer armrest, head lolling into the isle. His long legs extended diagonally under the table intruding into JJ's foot space. It would have been annoying, but JJ's feet were propped up across from her on the opposite seat, tucked under Emily's leg. She didn't seem to mind.

"Is he drawing something?" 

Emily's voice is quiet but surprised. Spencer opened his eyes to look at her but her eyes were back on her cards. When she looked again she just darted her eyes at Spencer, then over at Hotch sitting alone on the other side of the jet. Morgan was considerably less subtle than Prentiss, fully turning around in his seat to see what she was talking about. Luckily the subject of their attention was enraptured in his own business.

Hotch was sitting at the single table alone, work and files spread out in front of him, while writing into a black portfolio. This didn't look at all out of place for him as the man never seemed to stop working lately. He seemed concentrated on whatever he was writing, a passing glance would hardly think anything of it, but Spencer noticed how his pen didn't follow any lines or structure. His hand moved a little too fluidly, too slowly, too calculated.

Morgan scoffed and turned back to the table. "I'm sure he's just being thorough with the case report and including some sketches of JJ tumbling into that ditch."

"Ha, ha, and yet I still caught up to the unsub before you" JJ said as she placed a card down. That shut up Morgan and pulled Prentiss back into the game.

Spencer didn't look up right away, but he knew Hotch was looking at him. As the trio resumed their game Spencer closed his eyes and straightened just slightly, craned his neck a little more and imagined himself a model posing for an artist, a master, an appreciator, and hoped he looked at least a little less awkward and gangly. When he opened his eyes he catches his boss staring, a slight smile as their eyes meet and suddenly it's Aaron that's looking at him, not Hotch. After a moment his hand starts moving again. Spencer knows but he wont ask to see it. Instead he'll invite him over and pretend to be asleep when Aaron finds the new notebook in the drawer.

\----

When Aaron does find it he waits. In the morning when he's up first, when he knows he has a few minutes of uninterrupted time he pulls it out and settles into a chair across from the bed. The chair is another thing in the room that is his now, claimed by this routine, the many mornings spent waiting patiently for Spencer to wake up and life to start. He opens the sketchbook, appreciating the quality and the fresh new pages, but pauses before putting pencil to paper. He considers Spencer and considers the notebook. He flips though the pages and something pops out, rewarding his instinct. It's a letter, not addressed to him, in an envelope that's already torn open and post dated from months ago. Aaron wonders how hard it was for Spencer to convince his mother to send a letter back. He opens it, holds the letter like it's sacred. and reads like he's eavesdropping the first letter Spencer wrote about Aaron (not Hotch) back when he finally realized he was in love.

**Author's Note:**

> Holy commas batman. Sorry not gonna keep editing though, just gotta get this one out of my brain. Hot off the presses.
> 
> I felt like I have better luck with just stream of consciousness, write what on the mind, no plot, no gods, no masters. Enjoy.


End file.
